


Rip Hunter, Gator Whisperer

by plinys



Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: Aligators, Alternate Universe - No Powers, F/M, Recreational Drug Use, Texting, theme park
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-17
Updated: 2017-12-17
Packaged: 2019-02-16 04:29:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,281
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13046508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/plinys/pseuds/plinys
Summary: “Welcome to Gator Land, are you ready to fucking die?”





	Rip Hunter, Gator Whisperer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JackEPeace](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JackEPeace/gifts).



> This is an (early) holiday gift for Jackie, because we talked about this fic during a six hour drive together and I slowly made it happen. I hope this is exactly as gator filled as you always dreamed it would be.

“Welcome to Gator Land, are you ready to fucking die?”

There was something special about Gator Land. 

He’d spent too much time here as a kid, too much time here as an adult if he was being honest. When his dad’s gambling reward had turned into Rip desperately asking the owner of the world’s worst theme park to teach him everything there was to know about alligators, which had in turn turned into a high school job and then a college job and then the only place he had ever known up until a handful of months ago.

Gator Land had been his home, and there was something about it that always called him back. 

Something that was so uniquely Florida. 

Nowhere else in the world would there be a ‘theme park’ where the main attraction was an animal that was known to eat humans. 

Nowhere else would he be able to drive for miles passing billboards advertising 13 foot gators and a lifetime's worth of thrills. 

Nowhere else had her.

“You don't really say that whenever people walk in, do you?”

“I might,” she says, looking up under her worn baseball cap to finally meet his eyes. 

Sara Lance. 

There was something special about her, something he had never been able to explain. It was in the way she looked standing behind the counter in a cropped Gator Land sweater, too short shorts, and an upside down name tag.

As if she was the epitome of everything Gator Land was meant to represent.

A failed dream you keep having.

A mistake you don't want to look away from.

A woman grinning at him like the cat that caught the canary. 

“Well, well, well, if it isn’t my sloppy seconds.”

“That doesn't even make sense.”

“You don't even make sense.”

Rip had never been able to understand her. 

Not really. 

He tried to tell himself that wasn't part of why he left, but standing back here in the Gator Land gift shop for the first time in nearly a year, he couldn't remember how truthful that statement was.

Sara was a force of nature. 

And apparently the manager of Gator Land now that he had left. 

That she had been the person most qualified for the position was saying something. 

“You're looking good,” he says, as a peace offering.

And watches in turn as Sara’s eyes narrow at him, “Why are you here, Rip?”

This was it.

The moment of fate.

The very thing he was sure he was going to regret for the rest of his life. But the only thing that he could think of. 

(A drunk Ava had suggested him trying his hand at Seaworld, but  _ this  _ at least was better than Sea World.) 

He bites the bullet, “You're hiring.”

“No we’re not,” Sara says, too quickly. Even though there's a sign behind her head that read:  _ ask about employment opportunities!  _ Written in the cheery sort of handwriting that he’s eighty percent sure means it belongs to Ray.

Pointing out the sign would be too obvious. And he knows exactly how Sara would react, dramatically ripping it off the wall, which while entertaining would only serve to disappoint Ray.

Instead he says, “I've already talked to Dr. Stein.” 

Which is technically true, he texted the doctor, and technical owner of the theme park, two days ago. And while the reply had been  _ talk to Sara it’s fine by me _ \- well, Sara didn't need to know that. 

“Traitor.” She hisses, already digging out her phone. “I thought you were a  _ real adult _ working at a  _ real theme park  _ now.”

“Maybe I missed it here.”

“Bullshit,” she says, eyes snapping up from her phone, stopping mid-text.

He meets her eyes. The ones that always seemed to see through him. That make him want to admit all his faults.

He almost does it, almost opens his mouth to say  _ maybe I missed you  _ but he's saved from that when Sara gives him a look of half pity.

“You got fired didn't you?”

Grimacing is easier than admitting what had been on his mind moment before.

“Fucking shit really Rip? Was it the weed or the-”

“I don't have to answer that.”

“Worse than weed?”

“Sara-”

“I'm dying of curiosity,” she says, “If you tell me maybe i’ll let you have your old job back. I mean, not as manager cause, that's mine now,” she gestured pointedly to the upside down name tag, “But I mean I can bump Amaya to gift shop or Mick - thought that doesn't seem like the best-”

“I’ll work gift shop,” he says before he can stop himself. Because he needs this. He needs a job. He needs to be back here. Even if it means starting at the bottom again.

He’d worked gift shop when he was fifteen and well looking around not much had changed over the years. 

She stares at him again, for a long moment, those eyes scrutinizing him. Before she finally relents with a heavy sigh, reaching under the counter to pull out a familiar paper application. 

One that years before he had handed to her. 

“I’ll have you know we have a rigorous and highly competitive application process,” she says, placing the application down on the table a bit too hard, “Very selective.”

“That right?” 

“And I’ll have to confirm with the rest of the staff if you're a good fit for the team, could take up to a week to get back to you,” she continues. This time pulling out a pen, and on the top writing his name  _ Rip ‘Traitor’ Hunter. _

He doesn't even have it in him to act surprised. 

Instead he just points out, “It’s Michael.”

This at least gives Sara pause, the pen in her hand hovering above the page, “What?”

“My first name is Michael,” he corrects her, “Rip’s just a nickname - I mean, if you're so selective and official.” 

Sara’s eye roll is familiar and endearing and whatever part of him that had thought he was over Sara was clearly wrong.

Nobody was ever over Sara Lance.

Not really.

“Well, fuck.”

“Sorry,” he says, not for his name. For so much more than she's aware. 

Sara replies not with words but by grabbing the application and dramatically ripping it up into tiny pieces which she scatters over the gift store counter before grabbing out another application with the same dramatic flourish.

It seems foolish to ask, “Are you going to be like this the whole time?” 

Especially when he knows her.

“Why wouldn't I be?”

 

**

 

**UNKNOWN NUMBER:** You’re really going back there?

**RIP HUNTER:** Apparently. 

 

**

 

It really does take a week for her to get back to him. 

Nearly to the second when she calls him, the phone lighting up with a caller ID of  _ DO NOT DRUNK CALL THIS NUMBER _ , something that he will likely need to change now that they're going to be working together. 

“Sara.”

“Miss me?”

“No.”

He can picture the exact look on her face as she lets out a mock offended noise. “Come down to Gator Land, I've got a name tag with your name on it.”

“As opposed to some else’s name?”

Sara's laugh is sharp and direct, “I know my faults,” she says before hanging up the phone. 

Driving to Gator Land is easy, a familiar set of streets from the home he grew up in - the one that technically belonged to his father if the famous  _ Booster Gold  _ ever reappeared properly to claim it - a path that he had taken too many times to count.

It's not long enough.

Not to delay the inevitable.

But when he waves past the parking attendant and drops the van off in one of the  _ staff  _ parking spots, it feels like just long enough.

He doesn't have to go into the gift shop this time.

Sara's waiting for him out in the parking lot, a poorly folded up shirt and name tag in her lap, while she shares a joint with the park’s one mechanic, Jax. 

Another familiar sight.

A wave nostalgia over takes him briefly. How was it that he could miss this? The way two underpaid former employees of his, now co workers, looked taking their smoke break.

Jax puffs out a ring of smoke while Sara waves Rip over and it feels right.

He did miss this. 

“Rip Hunter,” Jax says, voice loud and booming like an announcer, “The infamous Gator Whisperer, returning to his roots.” 

“I'm already regretting it.”

“Sucks,” Sara says grinning at him, “Shouldn't have gotten fired from Disney World. Maybe if you hadn't kidnapped that little kid-”

“I didn't kidnap any kids.”

Jax offers him the joint, while saying, “You know she's only doing this ‘cause you won't tell her why you're back.”

He takes Jax’s offering, taking a long drag before offering it in turn to Sara. She surprisingly doesn't take it, instead allowing Jax to grab it back before turning to Rip.

“I’d give you the official new hire rules and tour but I figure you know this shit.”

“I do,” he confirms.

“Good,” Sara continues, “Here is your free new hire shirt, wear this or any of the hundreds of Gator Land shirts I’m sure you already own, or wear something else, I don't give a shit, just make sure when Martin comes in you're in the right shirt.” 

She says all of this, as if he was not the very one that came up with that rule years before. 

“Here’s your name tag, above all else, always wear a name tag,” she flicks the name tag on her chest as she says this, yet another pinned upside down, though this time a name that is mostly certainly not hers.

However, he misses his opportunity to mention it when he looks down at the name tag she's handed him.

Suddenly Jax’s booming announcement from moments before made sense.

“No,” he says.

“Yes,” she replies.

There in his hand the name tag reads:  _ Rip Hunter, Gator Whisperer _ .

“You can’t be serious.”

“I’m always serious,” Sara insults, though at his dismissive look she heaves a dramatic sigh. This time taking the joint right from Jax’s fingers to take a final drag on it before stubbing it out. It’s only then that she bothers to dignify him with a response. “Look if you don’t like it you can quit. I’m manager around here now, and it’s my way or the highway.” 

“Sara-”

“I’m sorry, but does your name tag say manager?”

“Technically,” Rip says, letting his eyes settle on the name tag pinned to her own tie dye Gator Land shirt, “Yours says  _ Not Ray _ .” 

 

**

 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** SIDEBAR FOR A MOMENT CAUSE

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** it’s official rips back

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** so welcome him to the group chat blah blah  blah

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:**  dont let the baby gators bite

**GATOR WHISPERER:** Does my name have to be Gator Whisperer?

**THIS IS MICK:** Yes.

**GIANT BABY LABRADOODLE:** Yes!!!

**THE BEST:** yes. 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** oh look at that

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:**  unanimous beautiful iconic

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** this is your fate now

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** welcome to gator hell

**DOESNT WORK HERE** : wait whose rip????

**AMAYA:** I believe he works in the gift shop, Nathaniel. 

**GATOR WHISPERER:** Yes, regrettably. 

**GATOR WHISPERER:** Wait, who are you? 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** aNYWAYS IGNORE RIP, LETS GO BACK TO THE POINT AT HAND?! 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** WHO WANTS TO TRY AND FIX THE VENDING MACHINE

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** IT GOT KNOCKED OVER AGAIN

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** NOT IT! 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** XOXO SARA

 

**

 

Some things never change. 

For instance, Mick likely at least halfway to drunk, telling some innocent group of school children that there is absolutely no downside of touching an alligator, and that there was only the slight risk of being eaten. 

“Weave to dodge a bullet, but go straight ahead to dodge a gator,” Mick says, “They can’t bite you if you’re right out in front of their snout, but you turn and-” Mick claps his hands together just to watch the few kids near the front jump back. “You’re dinner.” 

A kid starts to cry, which is usually Rip’s cue to soothe the distressed parents or chaperones, at least it used to be his job, back when he worked the gator tours and proudly wore a badge that said manager rather than  _ gator whisperer _ . 

Now, the job is delegated to a young woman that he has yet to meet, who smiles with far too many teeth, and seems to be the only person wearing the Gator Land uniform properly, her tie dye shirt tucked in and everything, “Don’t mind Mr. Rory, he just likes to scare children, all our alligator's here are perfectly harmless! As long as you stay on your side, they’ll stay on theirs.” 

Her voice seems to soothe the distressed children, even if it does just lead to Mick grumbling, and somehow producing a can of beer from one of the many pockets on his cargo pants. 

Rip doesn’t even bother to pretend to be surprised from where he lurks on the edge of the tour group. 

Finally making his presence known when the group has moved on with their guide directing them towards where the baby gators are instead. Though he supposed his presence hadn’t been that unknown because Mick makes a half sort of grunt at him, which Rip knows to be an offer. 

“I’m good,” he replies, declining the half offered beer. “I just came here to see-”

“Your girl?” 

His girl. 

Technically Mick wasn’t wrong.

“How’s she doing?” 

“Missed you,” Mick says, leading the way to the pen, past a sign advertising the park’s famous thirteen foot gator. A slight embellishment on her size, not that anyone was about to get in the pen and measure her. 

Well, anyone other than Rip. 

“Good morning, Gideon,” he says, turning the electricity off of the fence, to slip inside of the pen. The gator in question, barely moves from her spot, a small acknowledgment of Rip’s presence in her pen, but not a hostile one. 

She was never hostile. 

Not with him. 

She was the reason he’d ever ended up at Gator Land in the first place. Back when his father was pretending at raising a child, having recently turned his bachelor pad into the sort of place that was barely suitable for a boy of ten. But it had been better than going back into the system, better than going from foster home to foster home, hitchhiking through swamplands and dreaming of something more.

Michael Carter gave his son very few things.

His first name was one of them.

The old house by the swamplands was another. 

But the most important of them all was a baby alligator, named Gideon. 

“You really are the Gator Whisperer, aren’t you?”

Rip jerks back from where he had been resting his hands against Gideon snout, and instead turns towards the gate to the pen. Mick is still there, drinking, tipped back in his chair by the control box. But he is no longer alone, the woman from earlier is there, along with another man - both unfamiliar to Rip - dressed in a UCF hoodie. 

“Don’t tell me you two actually listen to Sara.” 

The new duo laugh at that. 

The man speaking first, “I usually try not to, but in this case.”

“You really do seem to have a connection with her,” the woman insists, “I’m jealous. I’ve been trying to get Gideon to like me for weeks, all the others seem to, but she’s proving to be difficult.”

“She’s picky,” Mick confirms, “Only loves Rip.” 

He supposes his moment alone with Gideon is a long forgotten thing, and pushes himself up off of the ground. Whispering a quick, “I’ll be back later,” to Gideon before turning to the newly gathered group, and making his way out of the pen. 

“I practically raised her, I have an unfair advantage.” 

“Still,” she insists, “I can see why Sara chose the name.”

“You might be the only one,” Rip says, unlatching the pen and slipping out among his fellow humans. A moment later he hears the electrical hum of Mick turning the fence back on. “You two must be the new hires?”

“Yes, I’m Amaya, and this is-”

“Pretty, doesn’t work here,” Mick cuts her off.  

“Pretty?”

“Nate,” the other guy says quickly, speaking over Mick. “My name’s Nate, and I don’t work here.” 

“He’s our most valuable customer,” Amaya replies with a nod, “The only person Sara has managed to convince to purchase an annual pass.” 

Ah, that would be the one from the group chat then. 

“I mean, I do it for the free popcorn,” Nate says far too quickly, though his eyes linger on Amaya as he says those words and  _ oh  _ Rip knows that look. He recognizes it from his own features. The innocence that comes before the fall, that comes before admitting what you feel, and fucking in the back of an old pickup truck in the Gator Land parking lot. 

He doesn’t mention it, doesn’t mention what’s so obviously there. 

“I make that popcorn, and I can assure you, it’s not worth it.”

**

 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** nate i need more of that good college weed

**DOESNT WORK HERE** : i’ll be back sunday????

**DOESNT WORK HERE** : also im not your dealer wtf

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** im going to die without your good weed, DIE NATE DO YOU WANT ME TO DIE

**AMAYA:** Nathaniel needs to focus on his studies. He has midterms coming up next week. 

**THE BEST:** hold the fuck up, since when is my weed not good enough for you

**GATOR WHISPER:** Can I leave this group chat?

**THE BEST:** no 

**DOESNT WORK HERE** : nah bro 

**AMAYA:** There’s no leaving the group chat. You’re trapped here forever, and if you try to leave Sara will just add you back. 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** im the boss and i say no

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** everyone has to stay and love me wow

 

**

 

“It’s medicinal,” Sara says, taking a drag from a joint that is most certainly not medicinal, and more than likely Jax’s. As she sits on the counter of the gift shop. He’s certain she has something better to be doing, but she’s currently not doing whatever that is. 

Instead, she’s here, bothering him. Like she does every day. 

“It doesn’t count if it’s Laurel’s.” 

That earns him a grimace, a little bit too close to home. That’s something they don’t talk about. One of the many topics they’ve been dancing around. Rip’s not sure it’s his place to ask about Laurel’s accident. About whether Sara is still living at that fancy apartment in the city that doesn’t belong to her. About the dark circles under her eyes and bruises on her arms could possibly mean. 

If he doesn’t ask, she won’t tell him, and maybe it’s better that way. 

He hadn’t been there to help out before, not when she needed him, hadn’t been able to. 

He speaks again, if only to cut the tension in the room, “We have customers.”

“Fuck them,” Sara says, loud enough to draw a glance,“I died once.”

A few nervous guests looking at the fake alligator eggs, turn to glance nervously in their direction. And even though Rip knows no amount of customer service smiles will explain away Sara, it doesn’t hurt to try. 

“You did not,” he hisses at her, when the guests turn back to their purchases. 

Sara laughs. A sort of half laugh, not really there. Her eyes sweeping over Rip like she’s going to say something, something important, but stops herself at the last moment. 

“I die a little bit every day.”

 

**

 

**GIANT BABY LABRADOODLE:** Who ever keeps changing the /Days Since Last Incident/ Board, could you please stop? It is very concerning to our customers when the board says that two days ago a child was eaten by an alligator!! 

**GIANT BABY LABRADOODLE:** Not that whoever drew the cartoon was a bad artist! In fact, it was very detailed! Though we’ve gotten some concerned parents. ):

**THE BEST:** shit you made ray use a frowny emoji this is serious

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** LOOK IT WASNT ME 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** I MEAN, ITS BEEN ME BEFORE, BUT NOT THIS TIME

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** YOU ALL KNOW I CANT DRAW, THATS JUST FACTS

**AMAYA:** This is true. Sara cannot draw. 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** SEE

**THIS IS MICK:** Lise came to visit yesterday. 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** i cant believe,,,, y’all would erase our baby lisa’s beautiful artwork

**GATOR WHISPERER:** Our baby? Isn’t she older than Jax?

 

**

 

He just wants to go home. Today hasn’t been the best of days, it started out rough before he even got to work, but then it was anxious tourists and claims of overpriced gift stop items (rightfully so on both accounts, not that it helped Rip’s mood). Bad had gone to worse, and there was a pounding feeling that had decided to make its home right in the center of his forehead. Something that even the cocktail of drugs Ray had given him during their lunch break couldn’t fix. 

There was only one real fix at this point, a long shower and ten hours of sleep.

Something that was slightly harder to get to when a certain someone was blocking his path. 

Sara sitting on the hood of his van would have been a welcome sights months ago. Back before he left, back when Sara sitting on his van after work usually led to Sara kissing him up against the side of that van which led to sex on the futon mattress he keeps shoved in the back where normal seats should be. He can picture it so easily, her blonde hair glowing about her face as the holiday lights decorating the back of the van illuminated her features, as she settled down on top of him and -

“Rip?”

He’s snapped out of his train of thought quickly, blaming in the headache for letting the memory of a time now long past both of them come up. And instead focusing on the present. Sara, in a bright Gator Land orange hoodie cross legged on the hood of his van making escape impossible. 

“Not today,” he says, because whatever she has to say can wait.

“Saturday then,” she says, rolling with his impassiveness. Almost casual like this had been her plan all along. Find him at his worse and offer an alternative plan he couldn’t back out of.

That did seem her sort of thing to do. 

“What’s happening on Saturday?”

“Drinks,” Sara says, “A sort of Welcome Back to Gator Land party.” 

“No, thank you,” Rip says quickly, “Anyways, I’ve been back for three weeks, why now?”

“Why not?”

He doesn’t answer her. Because he knows this trick. It’s an endless loop, a game that Sara likes to play, but he can wait her out. Eventually logic always wins. Patience is a virtue that Sara has never managed to have. 

“I’m trying to get Nate and Amaya together, and drunk makeouts solve everything.” 

“That right?”

“They solved us,” Sara says. “Once upon a time.” 

_ Us _ . 

It would be a lie to say that that word didn’t still do something to him. Didn’t make him want to take it all back. To hop in a time machine and go back a year ago, never leave Gator Land, never leave Sara. 

“Fuck, Rip, don’t go all teary eyed.”

“I wasn’t,” he says, rolling his eyes. “And I’m not going.”

“If I promise not to get drunk and make out with you does that change things?”

“No,” he says. Unlocking his van deliberately, as if to say that the conversation is over. 

It’s not.

He knows better.

But she jumps off of the hood of the van, moves instead to grab his hand, to stop him from opening the door. Her hands are warm, and soft, and familiar. 

The familiar hurts most of all. 

“If not for me, then for everyone else,” Sara says. “The rest of the team missed having you around.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” he says. Even though he knows the opposite. The  _ team  _ doesn’t show it in quite the right ways, not always. But Mick had offers him a beer every time he stops by Gideon’s pen. Ray grins at him far too wide and wishes him good morning and good evening every day. Jax coming into the gift shop to just talk, about the car he’s fixing up or his plan to go back to college one day. And even Sara. 

Even Sara.

“We’re meeting up with Kendra and Carter, Mick’s bringing the Snarts,” Sara says, as if these points are supposed to sell him on the night out. “It’ll be like old times.”

“That’s not always a good thing.” 

She grins at that. Careless and carefree, a way that only she ever seemed to be able to smile. The smile that would convince him to do almost anything.

He tells himself that it’s not her smile that gets him to say yes, that it’s because she’s leaning against the side of his car, blocking his path so that he can’t get home, and saying yes will get her to go away. 

It’s a lie. 

Still, he sighs, long and drawn out before asking, “What bar?” 

 

**

 

**RIP HUNTER:** Are you busy Saturday?

**AVA SHARPE:** Am I going to regret saying no?

**RIP HUNTER:** Probably. 

 

**

 

“This is a shit hole,” Ava says, stepping out of his car. 

“If I say thank you again-”

“It won’t make a difference.” 

“I am thankful,” Rip insists. Something he feels the need to make very clear, especially since Ava is clutching too tightly onto the sleeves of her jacket, arms covered over her chest, as though her inner fight or flight instinct was telling her to fly. A feeling that Rip had to admit he felt as well. 

Ava hadn’t been wrong. The bar was a mistake, a mess of a place, that barely counted as a bar, but Len had introduced them all to the place back when Mick first started working at Gator Land. Len had never been able to convince his clean pressed Disney co workers to leave the city for a local joint that didn’t ask questions or check IDs, but the Gator Land team had always been ready for the next adventure. 

For that reason the bar would always hold a small soft spot in his heart. 

A sort of nostalgia that he couldn’t explain to anyone, especially not Ava the one person from his own stint at Disney that he’d managed to remain friends with in the aftermath. 

The idea had been for Ava to be there as his backup. That when it was time to ditch the party, she would signal discomfort or disinterest and Rip would be able to play the  _ sorry my plus one needs a ride home  _ card and escape the bar before anything awful happened. With the added bonus that walking in the door with Ava beside him would hopefully mean Sara would back off for the night, assuming that his plus one was really a  _ plus one _ .

No need to mention that Ava was a lesbian, and that Sara most certainly had more game with her than Rip did.  

It was a good plan.

A solid plan.

Worked like a charm when Rip steps through the door to the gathered group, Len already ordering them a round of drinks, “For the man of hour, who left the Happiest Place on Earth for Gator Land.” 

“Thank you, I think,” Rip says with a grimace, accepting the offered drink a moment later. 

“It’s a compliment.”

“Is it, really?” 

Whenever else Len had been about to say, is silenced by the arrival of Lisa and Sara, both slightly tipsy, though with too wide grins on their faces. Sara’s got a hand on Lisa’s waist that spells trouble, but Rip isn’t the only one to see in, and one glare later, Sara’s hand is finding its way back into her own pocket. While Lisa has turned to Ava already commiserating over fireworks duties like old friends. 

Which left him with - “I didn’t think that you’d come.”

“Of course, I came.” 

“I mean, you usually do when I’m concerned,” Sara says, and it takes him a second, a second to notice the way her nose wrinkles ever so slightly at her own innuendo for Rip to catch on what she means. 

“God, Sara-”

“I really am glad you’re here,” she calls out, after him, even as he moves away from her., making a beeline for the bar.

“Scotch,” he says, holding up two fingers. And downing the drinks that he gets a moment later. They burn on the way down, but not enough. 

Not enough. 

He lingers there at the bar. On the edge of everything, out of the way, and able to watch it all unfold. He’s always seen better from the edges. From the distance. Even back before, when he was the one who had worked at Gator Land the longest, he had felt this way. On the outside looking in, even with each new member of the  _ team  _ added. 

They were a team.

At least, they had been. And even then Rip didn’t fit. That was part of why he had felt, because they didn’t need him anymore, he had been a piece of the puzzle left out of the box, a missed connection. 

There had been Sara, but even that had been - 

From here at the edge he can watch all of them. 

Kendra and Carter curled up against each other in a corner booth, recounting an outlandish tale of a falling sarcophagus in the Mummy gift shop, while Ray listens eagerly, a grin in place that almost looks like it doesn’t hurt. 

Len and Lisa having both adopted Ava into the group easily, a loud explanation of who is who coming from their corner - Ava shoots him a questioning look when their eyes meet, but he turns his gaze away instead of asking her unspoken question. 

Jax and Mick going shot for shot at the other end of the bar, their own secret drinking game, which probably has something to do with Nate who keeps his own shot glass too close to his chest while watching out on the dance floor, as if he’s forgotten to ask for another distracted by what he sees instead. 

Rip follows Nate’s line of sight. Out to the dance floor, there’s a handful of strangers out there, milling around and talking while songs that were popular in the eighties play overhead, but there at the center of it all is two women. 

The one Nate was looking for and the one Rip is. 

Sara’s singing along with the song on the radio - her mouth forming the phone numbers of a woman that doesn’t exist - as her eyes meet Rip’s. 

She doesn’t stop singing along, but she doesn’t move her gaze away, and Rip can’t tear his eyes away either. It feels as if she’s holding him in place. Holding him there, even though he can’t hear her voice, he watches her lips as she sings along. 

_ For a good time, call _ \- 

There was a reason he stayed on the edges of things. 

There was a reason he had left Gator Land all those months ago. 

But for a moment he forgets all about that, forgets about anything other than moving off of the bar stool, through the small gathered crowd to where she is there. 

He barely even registers Amaya moving away, barely recognizes the song changing. 

He can’t even blame it on the alcohol, not when he’s had significantly less to drink that she has. There’s no excuse for stepping into Sara’s space, for letting her lean against him. Arms up over his shoulder like they’re two kids at prom, not fully grown adults with too much history between them. 

“Say you don’t know me, or recognize my face” Sara half says, half sings. 

“What?”

She laughs, nodding up at the ceiling. 

“The song, Rip,” she explains.  

“I knew that.”

“No you didn’t.”

“I-”

“Is hooplah really a word?”

“What?”

“God, I think, I actually missed you.”

“What?” 

“Don’t you remember,” she’s singing while she speaks again, saying into his space, and he’s not sure what he’s supposed to remember. 

“Sara, I-”

“We built this city.”

This time he knows it’s a lyric, and he turns to tell her to stop, or to tell her to keep going. He’s not sure. Not sure it matters. Not when he looks down into her eyes intending to say  _ something  _ and loses it all, because she presses up on her toes, and kisses him. 

This, a part of him thinks is familiar.

This, a part of him thinks was inevitable.

This, a part of him thinks shouldn’t be happening. 

He kisses her back, silencing all other thoughts in his mind.

This, a part of him thinks feels right. 

 

**

 

**GIANT BABY LABRADOODLE:** Good Morning! Hope everyone is recovering from their hangovers well! 

**GIANT BABY LABRADOODLE:** Also! On a related note, has anyone seen Carter’s pants? 

**THE BEST:** dissapointedbutnotsurprised.gif

**DOESNT WORK HERE** : wait wait wait

**DOESNT WORK HERE** :  why are you asking for carter????

**GIANT BABY LABRADOODLE:** He’s not in the group chat. ):

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** ofc he’s not 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** he doesn’t work here

**GATOR WHISPERER:** Nate doesn’t work here.

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** but nate’s cool

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** also hold the fuck up 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** cool nates question stands tho 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** (also rip check your dms i got peanut butter in the kitchen xoxo)

**DOESNT WORK HERE** : you think im cool??!!!!!

**GIANT BABY LABRADOODLE:** That’s because he stayed with me last night! So did Kendra. They’re both here at my place. Except, not Carter’s pants ):

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** did you have a 3some babe im so proud of you

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** also rip seriously this peanut butter aint gonna eat itself

**DOESNT WORK HERE** :  wait also WAit, why are you and rip getting kinky with peanut butter

**GATOR WHISPERER:** We’re not.

**THE BEST:** congratsonthesex.gif

**THIS IS MICK:** its too early for this bullshit

 

**

 

“I think Ray had a threesome,” are the first words Sara says to him when he manages to make it into the kitchen, followed by, “Grab a spoon if you want some of my peanut butter.” 

“I don’t want either of those things.” 

“Suit yourself,” she shrugs.

Casual, indiferent, in nothing but a bra and pajama bottoms. 

The exact opposite of how Rip felt.

He wasn’t sure exactly what it was, but it wasn’t indifferent, it was complicated and a mess and probably a mistake.

But there would be time to dwell on that later, time when he was far away from Sara, and not here, with a hangover pounding in his head as he tries to find an excuse to leave. Staying over at Sara’s place for the night and everything that came with it hadn’t been something that he intended to do.

He’d come up with an escape plan to prevent exactly this.

And yet here he was.

In an apartment too nice to possibly be Sara’s. 

He hadn't had a chance to look at the place the night before. It had been too much of Sara, too much fumbling in the dark to the nearest flat surface, too much forgetting the people they were supposed i be. But now he has the time. He looks around the apartment, the white walls, the modern furniture, a kitchen that was meant for cooking extravagant meals not just sitting on the counter topless with a jar of peanut butter and a spoon.

It was too nice to be afforded on the Gator Land paycheck.

Especially considering the last time he'd gone back to Sara’s place, it had been a shitty apartment with three loud roommates. 

(Still, a better option than going back to his place when his father was in town.)

Sara seems to sense his gaze, “I’m house sitting.”

“For who?”

He doesn't mean for his voice to sound as shocked as it does, but someone with this nice of a place trusting  _ Sara _ to house sit didn't add up.

At least not until she replies, “For Laurel.”

Suddenly he's wide awake. Regret washing over him in an instant, like a bucket of cold water dumped over his head.

“I'm sorry,” he says even though he knows it's not enough and not what she wants to hear. 

Sara shrugs like it doesn't matter to her, but it does, he can tell it does. “The cool thing about having a sister in a coma is that I get to borrow this swanky place,” she says, voice dead and uninflected. A joke that falls flat. That covers up so much more.

He can still remembered it. How Sara had called him, her voice shaking over the phone line - Laurel had been stabbed, there was a chance she wouldn't make it, and Sara had needed someone there - and Rip just -

“It’s whatever, Rip, honestly,” Sara says, her voice still carrying that same tone. “Laurel will wake up when she's ready and then I'll find somewhere else to live, it doesn't matter.”

It does.

He doesn't point that out though. He's sure she doesn't want him to. 

Instead he watches Sara jam another spoonful of peanut butter into her mouth. And takes the opportunity to change the topic, “Can we please get real hangover food?”

“Waffle House?”

“No.”

“Great! Waffle House! I’ll go put on a dress!”

“That's not what I-” he stops, as Sara loudly sets her jar of peanut butter down without even removing the spoon. Already bounding down from the counter, adjusting one of the straps of her bra as settles down on the ground. “-Why do you need a dress?”

“Because I want to look fancy,” she tells him, as though it should be obvious before adding. “Also it's Sunday, and good church going girls get better service than hungover messes.”

“You've never been a good church going girl.”

“No, but I clean up pretty. Blonde hair, baby blue eyes, a white dress, you'd never know I wasn't.”

 

**

 

**THE BEST:** and then she told me to call her Star Girl, like Universal girls are weird, but she’s got these legs for days, so I wasn’t about to complain. 

**GATOR WHISPERER:** As exciting as Jax’s sex life is. Some of us are working.

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** dont be a party pooper rip wow

**GATOR WHISPERER:** Are you sure I can’t leave this group chat?

**GATOR WHISPERER:** What about Nate? He doesn’t work here.

**THE BEST:** YET

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** i already told you nate was cool

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** stop the nate hate wow 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** he s going to college to support and feed all of us

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** and bring the good college weed(tm)

**THE BEST:** BOOM 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** group chats mandatory for all employees, get with it michael

**GATOR WHISPERER:** What about Gary? He’s not in the group chat.

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** the fuck is a ””””Gary””””””

 

**

 

“Do you want a job?”

“No.”

“It's a good job, with no benefits other than cool t-shirts and a break room perfect for having sex in.”

“No, I- wait! I eat in there.”

“I've been eaten out in there, that's not the point.”

“There's a point?”

“With Sara,” Rip says, interrupting the ongoing debate between her and Nate, “There usually isn't.”

He'd been watching them for the past hour, joking around in the gift stop, it wasn't like it mattered. It was a rainy Tuesday, nobody in the world had any interest in going to an alligator themed park on a rainy Tuesday.

“I'm hurt,” Sara says, with a faux wounded voice. “You know I could fire you.” 

“Please,” Rip replies, only half joking.

Though Sara decides to take the joke for what it's worth, hopping up out of her seat easily to round on Rip, before not so carefully unpinning his name tag from his shirt. Then, with a dramatic flare turning around to toss the name tag at Nate who hadn't been smart enough to slip away in Sara’s brief moment of distraction. 

“There we go Nate’s hired.” 

“It doesn't work that way,” Rip says.

While Nate insists, “I would literally rather die than work here.”

A sentiment Rip understands all too clearly.

Though a sentiment that was confusing considering how Nate was always here at Gator Land rather than any other place a relatively sensible person should be. 

Rip catches his name tag when it's tossed back to him, ignoring Sara’s pout to ask a question that he's been meaning. “Why do you come here so often anyways?”

Sara beside him snorts.

“Isn't it obvious?”

“Is it supposed to be?”

She nods her head gesturing at Nate. “It’s because he loves Am-”

“Gators,” Nate says quickly cutting her off. “I love gators.”

Another snort from Sara.

“He means our chief Gator wrangler.”

Right. Sara had mentioned that at the bar, but there had been so much else that went on, that night that he had completely forgotten. 

Of course, now that he thought about it, it was so obvious. The way he looked at her like are was the only person that mattered in the whole world. The way he finds any excuse to be in her space. The way he makes any excuse to deny it.

Rip remembers feeling that way once. About someone who currently had been doing everything in her power to avoid talking with him about what Saturday might have meant.

He hadn't realized that Nate was speaking, caught up in his thoughts, only tuning back in as Nate insists to Sara - “she's like my Africa. The song, not the country.”

“The fact that you have to say that only makes it slightly less racist.”

“I mean,” Nate let's out a huff that's more lovelorn than exasperated, “I could listen to her any day of the week and i’d never want to stop.”

“That makes no sense,” Sara insists.

And though Rip won't say it, he once again has to disagree with her, because he knows exactly the feeling Nate’s describing. 

 

**

 

**AM-GATOR:** Why was my group chat name changed? 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** this is who you are now

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** accept it

 

** 

 

How did they get here?

How did this happen?

How come it was so hard to say no to her?

To Sara, who was perched above him. Her shirt abandoned long ago, he hair falling out of a messy bun to frame her face, her eyes meeting his for just a moment before dips down to kiss him and -

It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

They weren’t supposed to fall back together, back into this casual sex in the Gator Land break room sort of nonsense. He had thought he was beyond that, had driven to move beyond that, but Sara was there.

And Sara was offering.

And Sara was grinning at him with that wild carefree one. 

And it was all too easy to give into her.

To flip the sign on the gift shop door to closed, and pull her into the back, into kissing and touching and not thinking about what this means. Not thinking about the fact that he feels more for her than she probably ever has even considered feeling for him. That the beating in his heart won’t stop even hours later, won’t stop even when he’s back home alone in a house that feels too empty. 

Her voice, needy and loud pulls him back to her, time and time again, “Rip! Come on, Rip!”

He shouldn’t do this.

He knows he shouldn’t.

But Sara has always been his downfall, so he kisses her to keep her silent, to keep his name off of her lips, and works to rid her of her jeans. 

 

**

 

**GIANT BABY LABRADOODLE:** Hey all! Don’t want to be a downer, but whoever keeps hooking up in Room C please remember to close the door when you’re done! One of the babies got loose and I found it in there causing trouble. ): 

**AM-GATOR:** Raymond has a point, everyone should do their best to keep the doors shut when it’s baby season. 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** sorry,,,,

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** my bad 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** hope the babies are okay???? 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** rip was eating me out in there earlier oops

**GATOR WHISPERER:** Can I just quit now of shame? 

 

**

 

“Don't be weird, Rip.”

“I'm not being weird,” he insists, because he's not. He's being a perfectly respectable employee that doesn't want to get caught having sex at work.

Again.

It didn't matter that Mick had just given them both the thumbs up.

His face was already heating up at the memory, “I'm the one of us actually being sensible.” 

“Weird,” Sara corrects, she's wearing what is probably the lowest cut Gator Land shirt in existence and crossing her arms over her chest like she just wants him to look at her. “Just because i’m your super sexy boss-”

“Super sexy?”

“Don’t bother trying to deny it.” 

 

**

 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** so quick question

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** super low key

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** but as far as most fuckable bosses go

**THE BEST:** sara youre our ONLY boss

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** uhhhhh valid

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** but also to prove a point

 

**

 

He’s about to sign out when there’s a hand at his wrist, steady and sure stopping him from bringing the pen down and writing the time. 

“Sara-” 

“What’s your plan for tonight?”

“Well it’s a Wednesday,” he points out. 

Wednesdays were for going home and sleeping, for wondering how he got here and why he kept coming back, for opening one of the beers that kept just appearing in the fridge, for cleaning up the mud tracks that would have undoubtedly made their way into the entrance before leaving out the backdoor without so much as a word. 

He doesn’t mention that to Sara.

It’s not like she would have listened anyways. 

“Nate brought the good weed,” Sara says, “I think it was a bribe to get me to stop talking about him and Amaya.”

“It probably was.” 

“But,” she replies, loud enough to drown him out, “But the point is, I have the good weed, and you deserve the good weed, and friends share weed with friends so-”

“The more you say that the less it sounds like a word.”

“So that’s a yes.”

No, it wasn’t.

Not really.

But Rip had long since learned that as far as Sara was concerned he would always eventually say yes. And while he might regret it in the end, the bit in the middle made it all worth it.

So he nods his head.

Let’s her drag him out of the breakroom. Their fingers entwined as he tugs her out to the part of the park that’s never used, from the glory days on the eighties, back when Stein had first opened the park and thought that a ferris wheel, game stands, and gator themed bumper cars might be enough to draw the crowds. 

It wasn’t.

The stands had long since been boarded up.

The ferris wheel sold for a minor profit.

And the bumper cars - 

Sara settles into one of them, the worn out and slightly decaying cushion, before patting the space next to her. A space that Rip slips into, it isn’t the easiest fit, his legs bent upwards to accommodate a space meant for children, but he manages.

By the time he settles Sara offers her bowl and lighter up to him, and Rip takes a long drag and then another, before passing it back to her.

They stay like this for a while, back and forth, without words needing to be spoken, and it’s nice. The quiet proximity of them. Of two people who don’t need to be anywhere else in the world. 

Until Sara speaks, “Why did you leave Disney?”

“I was fired,” Rip points out, “I didn’t leave willingly.”

“Still,” she presses.

He’s silent for a long moment, “I wasn’t a good fit. I tried to think that I was, that I belonged somewhere so nice and orderly and where everyone had I place and role. I wanted better for myself, I don’t know what I thought that was possible.”

It wasn’t an answer.

Not really, but Sara nods like it was.

“I get that,” Sara says slowly, “I mean, my sister’s a lawyer - or was-”

“Is,” Rip assures her, this much he can do.

Sara’s small smile of thanks is worth it. “And I’m here, dropped out of college after one year, working at Gator Land of all places. I know what being a disappointment feels like, because I am one. I’ll probably always be one, but I think I’m okay with that.” 

“I’m proud of you,” he says, blaming the weed for his moment of sentimentality. 

“Well, now that’s a game changer,” she says in a voice that is both sarcastic and sweet at the same time. 

“I know that what’s going on with us is complicated, especially considering before but-”

“We were never a thing,” Sars says, “Not really. I mean, we fucked, but I’ve fucked a lot of people.”

“That’s true.” 

“You don’t have to make this a thing.” 

“Right,” he says, his own voice sounding bitter to his ears, though Sara seems not to notice. Maybe that’s for the best. “Perfect.”

 

**

 

**GATOR WHISPERER:** Gary asked me on my way out to remind everyone that the lane to the right of stand is the exit. Though honestly I don’t know why nobody wouldn’t know that.

**GATOR WHISPERER:** And if you don’t you shouldn’t be driving

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** the fuck is a “”””gary””””

**THE BEST:** retweet 

 

**

 

She brings him breakfast the next morning, it’s not much, but it’s something. A McDonalds bag with two egg mcmuffins on the inside and a coffee. 

“What’s this for,” he asks, watching as she digs out one of the sandwiches for herself, before pushing the bag over to him.

The bag that Rip takes easily, opening it up to pull out his sandwich. 

“A disappointing breakfast for my fellow disappointment,” she says, though her voice is light like it’s all a joke, so he takes it at face value. 

And when she tips her own drink, a large mountain dew at eight in the morning, he raises his coffee up to meet hers in a mock toast. 

“To being a disappointment.”

 

** 

 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** PARTY TONIGHT

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** AT THE BAR

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** VERY IMPORTANT

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** ESPECIALLY FOR NATE AND AMAYA

**AM-GATOR:** Why do I have a bad feeling about this?

**GATOR WHISPERER:** That’s exactly the feeling you should have having. 

**THIS IS MICK:** lisa wants to know if she can bring a friend?

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** WAIT IS IT CISCO

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** BECAUSE I FUCKING LOVE CISCO

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** ALSO??? IS LISA HERE!????

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** i LOVE LISA TOO

 

**

 

He knows what’s going to happen before it does. When Sara downs two shots of fireball in a row, to his one, and proudly steps up to the microphone at the DJ booth. Still, there’s a brief feeling of second hand embarrassment that floods Rip as Sara speaks up over the gathered group of strangers that have begun to talk in the absence of music.

“So this next song, goes out to a special someone - no, two special someones,” Sara corrects herself, “They’re in love but they don’t realize it yet, so I’m fixing that. You’re gonna thank me later when you get married and name your first child after me. Sara’s a gender neutral name don’t worry.” 

Rip’s eyes scan the crowd, land on Nate who has seemed to realize just what was going on when Rip did and is shaking his head back and forth.

As if that could possibly stop Sara when she’d set her mind to something. 

“Anyways, Nate told me this wasn’t racist, and he was probably wrong, but I’m playing it anyways,” Sara announces before pressing a button on the DJ stand. “Amaya, you have to forgive his music tastes, he’s trying to be sweet.” 

And with that the familiar opening beats of  _ Africa  _ by  _ Toto  _ fills the bar.

Only broken up by Amaya’s laughter a moment later, and a comment of, “It is a little bit racist, Nathaniel.” 

While Nate moves to Amaya, Rip moves from his place down by the bar, up towards the DJ stand and to where Sara is singing a poor rendition of the lyrics into the microphone. Though she stops at the sight of him, setting it down in favor of reaching out for his hand and using him to help herself down from the raised platform.

She stumbles a bit on her landing, bumping into Rip, and he holds steady onto her, until the swaying he feels isn’t her trying to find solid ground, but rather moving to the music. 

Her voice isn’t loud into a microphone, but soft so that only he can hear as she sings, “ It's gonna take a lot to take me away from you. There's nothing that a hundred men or more could ever do.” 

He brushes her hair out of her face while she continues to sing, falling silent when the chorus as though she’s forgotten what the next lyric is. 

Maybe she has. 

He wouldn’t blame her, after all he tends to forget almost everything when Sara’s around. 

“Look at them, they’re actually pretty cute,” she says, gesturing over at where Amaya and Nate are laughing together on the dance floor their faces inches apart while  _ Africa  _ plays overhead.

They are sort of sweet, even Rip has to admit it.

He’s not sure which one of them deserve better, probably both, but as he watches them he can tell that they’re happy and isn’t that all that matters in the end.

Sara is still talking about them, how she was the one to orchestrate all this, but Rip isn’t listening to her, because when he turns away from Nate and Amaya to look at Sara he forgets everything else in the world. All he can think about is her,  _ Sara _ , the one person that he would dedicate every terrible eighties song in the world to. The one person that made coming to  _ Gator Land  _ of all places, week after week, worth it. 

“Hey,” he says cutting her off.

And Sara turns to him, echoing, “Hey,” a moment later.

“You know what else is cute?”

She smiles, mischievous almost, “Baby gators?”

He doesn’t answer her, not with words, but rather with lips. He kisses her, not like they’ve kissed before, not with fire and urgency, the type of kiss that would  have led to them fucking in the back of Rip’s van. But slower, more intimately, as if he’s trying to pour his heart into the kiss. 

And when she kisses him back, just as slow, and soft and sweet - he thinks that she might just understand what he means.

 

**

 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** i was serious about the first child thing

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** sara heywood is going to be a beautiful baby

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** i cant wait to buy her gator themed onesies

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** or him

 

**

 

Sara kisses him in the middle of the gift stop, and he only barely resists kissing her back.

“We’re working,” he murmurs there against her lips.

Sara lets out a noise that’s not quite a groan but can’t be anything else. It’s a noise that’s so uniquely Sara that Rip can’t help but laugh. 

He’s pretty sure loves her.

Loves everything about her.

Every noise that she makes. 

“What time do you get off,” Sara asks. “Or no, I can’t wait that long, when is your break?”

This time it’s Rip’s turn to laugh.

“I don’t know you’re the boss.”

“Good point,” Sara agrees, “Time for a break, we’ve both worked hard enough.”

“We just opened.”

“Uh, excuse you, I’m the boss.”

 

**

 

**RAY PALMER:** Hey, not to be /that guy/, but I just wanted to know that I’m worried about Sara. Last time you two did this it ended really badly for her when you left, and I kind of know what it’s like to be left behind when a relationship between coworkers end.

**RIP HUNTER:** I won’t hurt her. 

**RAY PALMER:** Are you sure?

 

**

 

He’d made a decision after talking to Ray last night.

A decision that he was probably going to regret, but -

No, he couldn’t blame Ray for this.

They had talked and Ray had a point, after all, Rip had been there for the Kendra fall out. He had seen it all. To say otherwise, to ignore the points that were right there, would be wrong of him. 

But it hadn’t been Ray’s decision to make. It was Rip’s, and he had chosen this, he had picked up breakfast for Sara, a way to soften what was going to be a harsh let down.

It didn’t count for much, he realizes that now, offering her the bag and asking if they could talk over their cheaply made sandwiches. 

“I don’t think we should keep doing this,” Rip says, pulling a chunk off of his muffin rather than eating it all at once.

For a second Sara doesn’t reply, he’d caught her purposely in the middle of taking a bite, so that she wouldn’t give him a quick rash answer. He’s not sure now, as he waits in a moment of anticipation, that this was the best idea. 

“Whatever, I told you that we didn’t have to make this a thing,” Sara says slowly, coldly almost. Unlike her. “I like casual sex, casual sex is nice, we can just keep-”

“It’s just that, we work together, and if things end badly… Like Ray and Kendra.”

Sara nods at that, before taking another bite of her sandwich.

And Rip watches her, waiting for a final verdict, for a moment that seems to take too long. His own food tasting like dirt in his mouth. 

When she finally speaks it doesn’t make him feel any better. “Right, so no casual sex. Whatever, I get it, I’m your boss, it’s fine.”

“Is it?”

“It has to be doesn’t it?”

“I guess.”

Another shrug, before Sara stuffs the rest of the breakfast sandwich in her mouth and exits the break room without another word.

 

**

 

**AMAYA JIWE:** Hey, didn’t want to post this in the groupchat, but Sara’s kinda bummed out and hanging out by Gideon’s pen. If you wanted to talk to her, she’s not talking to me.

**RIP HUNTER:** Thanks for letting me know.

 

**

 

It’s not fine. 

Sara is cold and awful and avoiding him, and this is not what he planned.

Not at all.

That isn’t what he planned.

He waits until he’s certain that Sara is off doing something else, off smoking with Jax, before slipping out of the gift shop and down to where Gideon’s pen is. 

Mick is the only one around and he barely pays Rip a passing glance when he mentions wanting to go in with Gideon, just turns off the electricity on the fence so that Rip can get down into her pen. 

The gator doesn’t really react to Rip’s presence, but he’s not looking for a reaction out of her, not really. He’s looking for a moment to express how he’s feeling to get it all out there, categorized carefully into fifteen different boxes that he can close up and lock away until he is ready to deal with them.

Which may be sooner rather than later. 

“I think I’m in love with Sara,” he tells Gideon. “Which, is a problem, because I didn’t come back here for Sara. I came back here to find my purpose to find somewhere that I fit in again, but… I don’t think I belong here. Not really, not anymore. Everything’s changed and it’s only been a few months, but it’s been enough. I don’t fit right. The only place I really fit is by her side and that’s not…  I don’t know what to do.” 

Gideon predictably doesn’t respond. 

He’s not sure what he had expected from her. 

Some sort of advice.

But there was no way to get advice from a gator, still he feels a bit lighter, just so momentarily. As if talking it out made it all easier to process. 

So he just sits there, for what feels like an hour saying nothing at all, brushing his hands over the scales of the docile gator and letting the sense of peace wash over him. This, at least, being here in the pen is where he belongs.

“I think I’m in love with her,” he says, again, when he’s ready to leave finally. Brushing the mud off of his jeans as he rises, “And I know it could end badly, but I don’t think I care. I’m tired of running from what my heart wants, I’m tired of-”

“Rip.”

He jerks back quickly, away from Gideon and turns towards the gate. Towards where it’s no longer Mick standing by the electrical box, but Sara.

_ Sara _ .

Who couldn’t possibly have misheard him. 

“Do you mean that?”

“I-”

“No, Rip, don’t avoid the question. Did you mean that?”

He can’t speak. Can’t say the words again, so he nods his head once and watches at a distance the change that overtakes Sara. From shock to worry to something else that he doesn’t know at all. 

“Okay,” she says, slowly, “That changes things.”

He wants to say  _ It doesn’t have to  _ but he can’t find it in him to say the words, and by the time he remembers how to speak again Sara is gone. 

 

**

 

**GATOR WHISPERER:** Who knows where Sara is?

**THE BEST:** bumper cars

**THE BEST:** dont fuck this up 

 

**

 

She’s there, exactly where Jax said she would be. Sitting in the same bumper car they’d sat in together weeks before. Her head tilted back like she could almost be sleeping, eyes closed, worry lines on her forehead.

“Sara?”

“Go away,” she says, but he knows that tone.

Knows what it really means. 

He doesn’t go away, he crosses the empty track to sit in the car across from hers. She’s too far away, he wants to touch her, to hold onto her and smooth those worry lines away. But he can’t. 

He’s the one that fucked this up by wanting something real and not wanting to hurt her all at the same time and now here they were.

So Rip waits for her to speak up to break the silence between them. 

Eventually she does. 

“I don’t know if I can keep doing this,” Sara admits after a moment. “Why did you have to come back here and ruin my life?”

“I ruined your life?”

She lets out an annoyed huff. “Well, no maybe not ruined but -  I know I’m not a good manager and that Gator Land is a shit theme park, but -”

“You’re wonderful,” he says. The one truth he’s always known. Sara Lance is made of wonders.

“You made me feel things,” she says these words now like an accusation. “Non-vaginal feelings, and like that fucks me up because who allowed that! Who said it was okay for you to make me feel things?”

“If it helps any,” Rip admits, “I feel things too.”

“Yeah,” she laughs, not quite bitter, but almost, and her eyes meet his, “We’re one fucked up pair aren’t we.”

“I think we were always destined to be this way.” 

“Yeah, I guess we were.” 

They lull into a brief silence. Rip unsure what to feel, but he watches Sara watches that calculating look in her eyes. The one that always usually meant trouble. 

Before, bracing himself and asking, “What happens now?”

This time she smiles, soft almost, a sort of rare smile for Sara, “Oh I have a plan.”

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?”

 

**

 

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** EVERYONE TO THE GIFT SHOP ASAP ITS SUPER IMPORTANT

**YOUR BOSS, BITCHES:** AND YES THAT MEANS EVERYONE 

 

**

 

The bad feeling only increases when he enters the gift shop with the gathered crowd of all the Gator Land employees and Nate - who has hooked his phone up to the gift shops sound system and casts him a sheepishly supportive smile when Rip steps into the place.

Though it’s nothing compared to the wide smile on Sara’s face, the one that he knows too well, the one that he’s fallen for time and time again. 

“Finally,” she says, when she meets his eyes, moving to stand nearly a foot away from him.

“I’m worried.”

“You probably should be,” she admits, before waving her hand in the air, and telling Nate to, “Cue the track.”

It takes a second for him to recognize the opening notes but when he finally does, he just asks, “Is this from the breakfast club?”

“It’s romantic.”

“I don’t think-”

“Rip Hunter,” Sara says loudly to cut him off and so that everyone can hear. “I love you, and I think maybe I had before, but you left and I didn’t know how to deal with that. Like it really sucked, you really sucked, and I was bitter about that for a while.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not finished,” she tells him, “See then you came back and that was chill, cause you’re  _ Rip Hunter  _ and you’re good at eating me out so I thought fuck why not do this again. I thought it didn’t have to mean anything, casual sex is good, but maybe I want something more than that and I think you might too?”

“I want more than that,” he reassures her, “I’m in love with you.”

“Good, because look I know we might fuck this up. I mean we’re Rip and Sara, we’re going to fuck something up and maybe not just each other. Which is why I have to fire you.” 

It takes a moment for her words to sink in, but when they do, he can only ask, “What?”

“Look, Ray was right, I can’t date someone who works for me. It’s a conflict of interest and the thing is Rip, I really want to date you.” 

“Sara, come on-”

“Pick me up seven?”

“I don’t think that-”

She reaches over to grab the front of his shirt and pull her to him, and Rip goes willingly, because despite how confusing this all is, it’s still Sara and she’s kissing him, and he can hear the rest of the Gator Land team cheering in the background, but it doesn’t matter because Sara is kissing him.

Sara is kissing him and she loves him and that’s all that matters in the world. 

They eventually pull back for air, and when they do it takes him a moment to realize that Sara has tugged his name tag from his shirt, but she has, and she holds it up in her hand making a fist and pumping it up in the air.

It’s adorable.

Thought it would be a lot more if her next words weren’t.

“Seriously, you’re fired,” Sara says before spinning away from him, and heading out of the gift shop. 

There’s a beat, a moment, where he wants to ask the gathered crowd if this really just happened.

If these past few months weren’t just an extended fever dream.

But all he can manage is, “Oh bollocks.” 

  
  



End file.
